


Refashioned

by mythras_fire



Series: The Only Constant is Change [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton Has a Big Mouth, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, POV Tony Stark, PTSD flashbacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Aftermath, Snarky Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 10:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17139881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: Tony and Bruce would be fine in time. They were both geniuses and scientists and friends. Bruce was undoubtedly beating himself up about this whole thing because that was his way but Tony was confident that he would come out alright - a little chagrined - but overwhelmingly thankful he hadn’t hurt Tony or Cap. But just in case, he’d asked JARVIS to keep an eye on him for the time being.Tony and Cap, well, that was another matter entirely.(Sequel to Shattered)





	1. Hiding

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hey, look, it's that sequel that I said I was working on *counts on fingers* almost five years ago! /o\ If anyone's still interested, it's done now and I even have a third story ready to post after this thanks to another lovely reader who asked for a prequel of sorts ^^. 
> 
> Anywho, this is my exploration of how Tony, Bruce, and Steve dealt with the fallout from their abduction, as Tony calls it. If I missed anything big tag/trigger-wise, please let me know.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any of these awesome characters or derive anything other than catharsis from writing about them and sharing their adventures with others. All pop-culture references belong to their respective creators.

~*~

-One night after “the incident”-

Tony was having a nightmare. A lucid nightmare- the worst kind. He was back on all fours, chained to the platform, Cap behind him, Bruce in front of him. Unable to move, unable to protest, he was fully aware that this wasn’t real, but just the same, he felt all of the panic, pain, and involuntary pleasure from his recent ordeal that had been all too real.

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

The worst part came when Tony relived the point at which he just couldn’t sit still any longer, the sweat from Cap’s body tickling his hole, setting off that inevitable chain reaction. Only this time, Bruce didn’t back away fast enough.

This time, the transformation came too quickly…

Tony woke up screaming.

-Two nights after “the incident”-

Not to be idly cowed by one gruesome nightmare of recent events, Tony stocked the shop with provisions, told JARVIS he was going down the rabbit hole, and went to sleep defiantly, armed with thoughts of the new armor upgrades he’d been in the middle of designing when he was abducted (it sounded cooler than ‘kidnapped’, so he was sticking with that) and a porno. The porn, visual ammo against bad thoughts, was about a guy who was a ghost hunter or some shit who mouthed off to a ghost who turned out to be an angel and he got fucked three ways to Sunday for his troubles. Who knew angels were so kinky and badass? There had even been a giant flash of shadow wings against the wall when the angel came all over the hunter.

As with everything else Tony indulged in, only the highest quality porn would do. Apparently, there were some paranormal categories he was going to have to explore; this new-fangled angel-kink stuff had some merit.

Unfortunately for Tony, however, there was no angel to watch over his sleep, or to fuck him into subservience, either of which would have been preferable to the nightmare he suffered for the second night in a row. Same rerun with a different but equally horrifying ending: Tony stimulating Bruce one too many times with his mouth…

He woke up gasping and choking on air as the lingering burn of acid left an acrid taste in his mouth that he knew wasn’t really there.

Tony had a bad feeling that he was going to run through his entire Top Ten Ways to Die list before long if this kept up.

-Three nights after “the incident”-

Tony did not sleep. He drank coffee and ate chocolate and engaged in all manner of naturally-occurring methods for maintaining himself in an upright and forward-moving position. For the moment he was steering clear of the liquor cabinet despite his previous aims to drain it dry, because he was leaving that course of action as a last resort.

So, those armor upgrades were going to be finished and implemented ahead of schedule because there was no way he was succumbing to his subconscious until it agreed to cooperate. He’d already been through this shit with his PTSD after Afghanistan and the haunting nothingness of outer space after the Battle of New York.

Bitch, please.

He was Tony Stark. All he needed to do was ignore it and it would go away. Eventually. And the best way to do that was to keep on keepin’ on in the shop. The shop he had been holed up in now for the last three days and nights sans contact with the outside world. He’d ordered JARVIS to refuse entry to anyone for any reason short of the friggin’ apocalypse. Not even Pepper.

It turned out they had indeed all been in shock back in that warehouse by the docks (it was, in fact, an old derelict canning factory- Tony had almost hurt himself rolling his eyes) so things hadn’t seemed so bad right then in the immediate aftermath.

But the shit had hit the fan in spectacular fashion once they returned to the Tower. Bruce, Cap, and Tony had all taken advantage of the recovery period that the others (except Clint, who seemed to be clinically incapable of keeping his big mouth shut) were affording them before the questions started raining down, and escaped to their rooms without a look or a word.

Tony wasn’t sure if the others had ventured outside yet but so far no one had come a’ knockin’ so he was betting they were at least respecting his need for space.

And time. Time and space. Two things he now had plenty of to keep his mind busy. Also, lots of standing. He hadn’t been joking about that. His throat was still a little raw (the recent bouts of screaming hadn’t helped much either) and he was still sore from being impaled on Capsicle’s icicle and their rough departure from the platform.

At least he wasn’t suffering from blue balls anymore. Another reason to invest in more of these new angel-hunter videos. He’d managed to get off even with very gentle strokes over his bruised cock after watching how strangely possessive the angel became of the hunter as he took him none-too-gently against the wall, on the bed, across the kitchen table. Wrapped around him, from the front, from the back…

Crap.

No. Not going there. Tony refused to draw any parallels. He didn’t care how brilliant his mind was, this was just porn. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, was purely coincidental. He was not going to let whoever did this to them (his money was on Loki, the dirty bastard) ruin sex for him.

Fuck no.

Tony and Bruce would be fine in time. They were both geniuses and scientists and friends. Bruce was undoubtedly beating himself up about this whole thing because that was his way but Tony was confident that he would come out alright - a little chagrined - but overwhelmingly thankful he hadn’t hurt Tony or Cap. But just in case, he’d asked JARVIS to keep an eye on him for the time being.

Tony and Cap, well, that was another matter entirely.


	2. Hedging

-Six nights after “the incident”-

“ _Sir, Dr. Banner is requesting entrance,_ ” JARVIS informed Tony as he pulled himself out of the torso of the armor he had just been inspecting.

Tony briefly debated ignoring the request out of sheer habit and the more recent need for time and space away from everyone to deal with…stuff, but then he caught a look at himself in one of the reflective surfaces around the shop and almost did a double take. He looked awful. His eyes tracked away from his reflection to survey the condition the shop was in and he grimaced inwardly a little.

Even the bots were looking a little listless. Wait, was that even possible? They were bots.

Tony sighed heavily and said, “Okay, let him through, J.”

If he was starting to anthropomorphize Dummy and You even more than usual, he probably needed human company more than he’d realized. But just Bruce. Bruce understood him.

“What’s up, Doc?” Tony asked nonchalantly when he heard Bruce step over the threshold as he turned away from the armor to set down the wrench he’d been using. He grabbed a rag, turned back around, and leaned against a table as he wiped his hands. He watched Bruce take in the shop environment like he was fully expecting the Creature from the Black Lagoon to come out and attack him or something (it didn’t look that bad, surely; so what if he’d kinda let things pile up a little bit, no big).

Bruce finally focused his concerned gaze on Tony and actually did do a double take. Geez, guess he looked worse than he thought. Bruce looked a little tired but not really any worse for wear. He certainly had a better recovery routine than Tony did, that’s for sure. Must be all that Zen Buddhist hocus pocus. Maybe he should give that a try some time. You know, when no one’s around…

“That bad, huh?” Tony ventured in the wake of Bruce’s momentary speechlessness.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Bruce finally said, sounding disappointed but not surprised. Damn, he really did know him too well.

“It’s hard to work on the armor in my sleep. Just ask the bots. I’ve tried, apparently. Who knew you could sleeptinker? Although not very effectively, it seems. Probably cuz you need to be able to see what you’re doing. Important, that.”

“Nightmares?”

Tony narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Did JARVIS tattle on me?” He turned to glare at the nearest camera, “J, you big fat narc.”

“ _I have not provided Dr. Banner with any details of your nocturnal woes, sir. He merely asked if you were having any difficulties in the aftermath of what happened and I informed him that you were well past your 72nd hour of sustained consciousness._ ”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like I said. Narc.”

“This is your M.O., Tony, it’s not rocket science. I could have figured that out all by myself just from looking at you but I thought I’d ask JARVIS in case there was anything else he needed to tell me,” Bruce replied. “At least you haven’t lost your snark. Otherwise there really would be cause for concern.”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

Bruce picked his way over random toolboxes and rags, plates, cups, and half-eaten sandwiches. The bots beeped and scurried over to be of service by scooting some of the bigger equipment and pieces of discarded armor out of the way, to which the scientist nodded his head in thanks.

Tony reached out to pull one of the armor’s arms closer to him and started absent-mindedly polishing the fingers of one glove with a rag to give himself something to do.

Bruce came over to peer inside at the progress Tony was making with the upgrades. Tony could hear him voice his approval of the changes, the sound echoing out through the open chest piece.

“This a social call?”

Bruce straightened up and turned to face Tony. “Kind of. I came down to see how you were coping.” His eyes darted around the room, then returned to squint at Tony for a moment before continuing, “Or not coping as the case may be.”

Tony moved up from the glove to start polishing the forearm plates with the zeal of someone who had only been on their feet for a mere 48 hours straight.

“I’m coping. Sleep doesn’t have to be part of that equation. In fact, it’s rather more of a hindrance than a help. I let you in, didn’t I? J, how many calls from Fury have you received?”

“ _24, sir. He stopped calling on the third day after your return._ ”

“That’s because I called to let him know we were all alive and taking some time to recover from our… ordeal. He said to let him know as soon as you’re feeling more like yourself again.”

“That’s just cuz he’s going through debriefing withdrawal. I swear he lives for those. Only chance he ever gets to chew my ass off officially and in front of an audience. Dude probably even gets off on it or something fucked up like that.”

Bruce chuckled at Tony’s retort. Tony looked up from his polishing to give Bruce a smirk in reply. He was glad to see the other man smiling again.

“So, I take it you’ve calmed your chi or whatever it is you go do in that little garden of yours? We cool? You’re not blaming yourself too much for something you had no control over?" He scratched at a non-existent itch on the bridge of his nose. "Kudos, by the way, for not hulking out on me while I was um, attached, shall we say,” Tony added a bit awkwardly, “I appreciated that.”

As he expected, Bruce dipped his head momentarily, blushing slightly at Tony’s diplomatic wording, mindful of Bruce’s more bashful demeanor. He raised his head after a moment and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose before replying, “Yeah, we’re cool. The other guy did quite a number on that platform thing and I think that helped him take out his frustration. I know he’s glad you weren’t hurt. He likes Shellhead to stay in one piece.”

Tony smiled fondly at the Hulk’s name for Iron Man.

“And thanks for staying still as long as you did. I know that had to be really ha…” Bruce suddenly trailed off and blushed again, eyes drifting down to Tony’s mouth and back up.

Tony grinned. “Hard?”

Bruce had the grace to laugh softly at that one since he’d walked right into it. “Yeah. I know it was difficult and frustrating for you to be restrained like that, unable to voice your protests or to contribute to getting us out of there.”

Tony sighed at the reminder, his polishing forgotten for the moment. He stared down at the floor for a second, momentarily reliving the feeling of panicked anger he’d felt at being so forcibly stilled by those circumstances. He must have been scowling because he suddenly felt a light hand on his shoulder, just like the other night almost a week ago when Bruce had come over after the other guy had finally calmed down.

This time when he looked up, he found a pair of sympathetic eyes, guilt-free and offering the support both Bruce and Tony knew he’d never ask for out loud.

Apparently feeling the need for a little levity, Bruce asked with a conspiratorial forward tilt of his head, “So, why _did_ you start moving?”

Tony chuckled, grateful, even if he couldn’t admit it, to have his ScienceBro here to help him get through this. He resumed polishing the armor, moving to the upper arm piece, glancing at Bruce out of the corner of his eye. “Cap’s sweat was tickling me and I only had one way of scratching that itch.”

Bruce’s laughter loosened some of the tension that had been coiling up inside Tony’s chest since he’d stopped sleeping in order to avoid the nightmares. He smiled in agreement with the other man’s response to the truth, simple as it was.

Bruce squeezed his shoulder once before letting go as his laughter died down. “Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Had been kinda wondering what had been the cause but _that_ had not occurred to me.” Promptly Bruce sobered, as if he had just been reminded of something that wasn’t so laugh-inducing. “You need to talk to him. He feels just awful about what happened. He thinks it’s all his fault.”

“What’s he been doing, taking lessons from you?” Tony tried to joke. Bruce didn’t take the bait.

“Go see him, Tony. He needs to know you don’t harbor any ill-will for what happened. He needs to see that you’re okay.” Bruce suddenly took a step back, giving Tony the once-over and grimaced. “Wait, on second thought, not today. You’ll scare him half to death if he sees you looking like this. Get some sleep first. Please, for me? Then go see him.”

Tony scoffed. “You make it sound like he thinks he…” he paused as he read between the lines of Bruce’s plea. He stopped polishing the armor as his brain caught up with what Bruce seemed to be implying.

Bruce winced a little but said nothing, his eyes sliding off to the left before refocusing on Tony, which pretty much confirmed the conclusion Tony had just reached.

“Seriously?” Tony asked incredulously. “Why would he think that?”

“Just go talk to him after you’ve had a good night’s rest and cleaned yourself up, okay? I’ll be here when you need me, you don’t even have to ask.” Bruce patted Tony’s shoulder a couple times in an encouraging ‘go get ’em, tiger!’ fashion and turned around to make his way out of the shop.

Tony stood there dumbfounded, arms frozen in the middle of what he’d been doing, his mind running around frantically in his skull trying to puzzle out how in the world Cap could be thinking what Bruce was apparently implying he was thinking. But then he remembered who he was talking about here. Right…

“ _Shall I prepare some soothing chamomile tea before you retire for the night, sir?_ ” JARVIS broke into his thoughts, snapping him out of it.

“What?! No, not you, too, J,” Tony whined. “How many times have I told you that no matter how you dress it up with fancy little names and cute little tea bags, warm flavored water remains warm flavored water? So, stop trying to get me to drink Bruce’s hippie potion and get me a glass of Bailey’s while I go up to my room to get ready for bed, nightmares be damned. I’ve got a deluded old man to sort out tomorrow.”

“ _Right away, sir_ ,” the AI said with what Tony could have sworn was a barely concealed chuckle.


	3. Hurting

-Seven nights after “the incident”-

Tony managed to skate by with about five hours of uninterrupted sleep before he woke with a start from a new nightmare about, what else? Cap losing control and pistoning into Tony’s ass at super soldier speed until, well, until everything went black and Tony woke up panting, his heart racing, and a phantom pain in his ass. He was actually starting to look forward to his meeting with Rogers later if it meant that they’d be able to put this all behind them. Hah. Behind them. Yeah, no. Then maybe Tony could go back to his regularly scheduled dreams and fantasies cuz this shit was gettin’ old fast.

He punched his pillow a few times to re-fluff it, turned over to his other side, closed his eyes and consciously brought up mental images of the latest angel-hunter video he’d watched before bed to help re-direct his thoughts down more consensual avenues. It turned out these videos belonged to a series and so instead of a bunch of unconnected one-shots, the hunter and angel started getting to know each other amidst the hunter’s continued mouthing off and the angel’s holier-than-thou attitude. The porn began to take on meaning and the hunter more or less stopped banging anything that moved after a job because the angel kept him hard and always wanting more.

Huh. Porn with feelings. Surprisingly, it worked. Who knew?

Tony was able to sleep for another four hours so he considered that a win for his subconscious; the morning wood he woke up to was a win for his cock. By the time he was showered, dressed, and coiffed, he felt much more like his usual self. He even looked half-way decent.

Alright, let’s _do_ this.

Tony had forgotten to ask Bruce if the others had come to the end of their patience regarding leaving them be about that night, so he was operating under the assumption that the Inquisition could start at any moment if he were to be spotted. It’s not that he didn’t want to tell them about it— okay fine, that’s the last thing he wanted to do right now— but he wanted to talk to Bruce and Cap first to figure out a game plan because obviously it was a touchy (hah- no pun intended) and sensitive matter.

So, Tony had to resort to being sneaky to make it from his floor to Cap’s floor without being seen by Legolas or his deadly partner. Their friendly neighborhood Norse God was off visiting his Lady Jane, JARVIS had informed him earlier. Tony made a mental note to fund some more of Jane Foster’s research efforts in order to give Thor a reason to leave the Tower from time to time while he was here slummin’ it with the mortals.

Even after JARVIS had assured him three times that “ _Agents Barton and Romanov are down in the exercise room using each other as target practice_ ,” Tony still used the elevators on the far side of the Tower to get to Cap’s floor. Paranoia had come to be good friends with Tony since Afghanistan and probably saved his life a few times by now.

He felt childishly proud of himself for making it to Cap’s door undetected but the smile fell a little bit the moment the other man opened the door in answer to Tony’s resolute _knock knock knock_.

Capsicle looked startled to see Tony standing there, like that was the last thing he’d expected after what had happened, which did not bode well for Tony’s plan to put things behind them and move on.

“Hey Cap, I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to see what you’ve been drawing lately that might have been inspired by those museum art prints I brought you the other day,” Tony said with his usual bravado as he pushed his way inside without giving the other man a chance to say anything first, or, you know, like, invite him in.

“Tony, I…” Cap started weakly, but didn’t finish. He was leaning against the door frame like he needed the support to keep him upright. The man looked as unwrinkled as ever, which meant that this was a sign of mental exhaustion he was exhibiting.

Man, Bruce hadn’t been exaggerating. Straight to calling him by his first name and everything. Cap really did look awful, but it was only visible in his uncharacteristically lifeless eyes, the furrowed brow that wouldn’t smooth out, and the tight lines around his down-turned lips.

Tony walked into the room, taking in the spic-n-span cleanliness of the counters and furniture, sketchbooks artfully strewn across the coffee table. The melodic strains of Mel Tormé were softly flowing from the old-fashioned-styled CD player Tony had bought Cap when he’d asked for something that didn’t require “that ‘user-interface’ contraption” for listening to music. When Tony’d informed him that a CD player was still new-age tech, Cap had replied quietly that it reminded him of a record player, and Tony guessed that that must have been a comfort, however small.

“Why am I not surprised,” Tony smirked, “that you’re the compulsive cleaning type.” He plopped himself down on the couch situated opposite the coffee table.

“I don’t have much to…” Cap rubbed the back of his neck nervously, still rooted to the spot next to the open door. “Why are you here?”

“You should see the shop- well, not now- Dummy and You are down there cleaning it up, but it was a fuckin’ mess earlier,” Tony continued as if Cap hadn’t spoken. “We’d make the Odd Couple look like amateurs,” he said with a chuckle as he leaned forward to snatch a sketchbook from the pile.

“Odd couple?” came the confused-but-curious-sounding voice from behind him.

Tony smiled to himself. Sometimes it was just too easy. He started flipping through the sketchbook, a surefire way to get Cap to actually close the door and join him on the couch.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

The door clicked shut and a moment later the couch dipped beside him. Tony had thumbed through half the book and was currently looking at a recent panorama sketch of the view from Cap’s window of the Manhattan skyline.

A puff of exhaled air, then, “Tony…”

Tony looked up finally. “Nice shading here. Really gives the skyline a sense of depth.”

The captain was starting to look like he was getting over whatever nervousness/guilt he was obviously wallowing in and his more typical exasperation with Tony’s (sparkling and perfectly amiable) personality was trying to poke through with a pointed glare, which Tony pointedly ignored.

He looked back down as he flipped to the next page. And the next. And the next. His brow furrowed. He couldn’t tell what he was looking at now. He leafed through the three or four pages that seemed to be progressive versions of the same sketch, each one from a different angle, with differing amounts of detail and shadows. The pages were blank after this set of sketches, which meant that they were new.

“What’s this one supposed to be?” Tony asked as he held up the sketchbook in front of him and rotated it 90 degrees one way then the other, trying to make heads or tails of the skeleton-frame objects. On one page, he saw three tall lines – stick figures, maybe? – grouped together on top of a long horizontal line in one drawing. But then again, they could be blades of grass growing out of the ground for all he knew. He was horrible at understanding abstract art. Of course, maybe that was the point. You weren’t supposed to understand it, just appreciate its abstractness.

Riiiiight. Rorschach he was not.

Instead of answering him, however, Cap made a half-hearted attempt to pull the sketchbook out of Tony’s hands, but Tony had been expecting such a move and was able to swivel away from the other man in time.

“No, I mean it, what is this? I can’t figure it out but it must be something interesting if you keep drawing it,” Tony persisted cuz now it was gonna bug him until Cap told him or he got it by himself.

Tony figured he was about two seconds away from getting an elbow to the gut to force him to drop the sketchbook like he normally would’ve gotten for manhandling Cap’s artwork. The guy was kinda twitchy about that stuff. But then, so was Tony with the bots so he could sorta relate.

But the super soldier just sighed again, bent forward, and buried his head in his hands, groaning slightly.

At first, Tony thought Cap was just exasperated with his behavior, but then he thought he heard him mumble something.

“What was that, Capsicle?”

“I can’t get it out of my head,” Cap repeated, barely loud enough for Tony to make out what he was saying. Dude sounded positively miserable.

“Get what out?” Tony frowned in concern. Man, he really was taking this hard.

“That,” Cap replied, bodily pointing at the drawings in Tony’s lap by leaning to his right for a moment.

“You can’t get this drawing out of your head?” Tony asked rhetorically. “Well, yeah I can see that; you’ve drawn it from almost every angle. But why that’s got your panties in a twist is my question.” Tony turned back to the first drawing, tilting his head to one side this time, holding the sketchbook up close and then at arm's length while squinting at it like one of those magical illusion pages. “That, and what the heck it is.”

The more he stared at it, the more it looked like a view of something that you’d hold in your hands in front of you. The lines were ragged and sharp, the pen having dug into the paper to drive home the point that whatever was being held wasn’t going _anywhere_.

Cap finally gritted the words out, like it physically _hurt_ him to say them.

“It’s… it’s you.”

*~*~*~*~*

_It’s you._

And just like when your eyes finally decipher the hidden picture inside the optical illusion, you can’t un-see it after that. Tony looked at Cap for a moment in sheer confusion and when he looked back at the sketchbook, the drawing almost jumped off the page.

It was him. Or to be more precise, it was his ass. The view from above of the jagged pen lines was from Cap’s vantage point as he looked down at where their bodies were joined. There were sketches from the angles that were apparently seared into Cap’s brain and other angles that his mind’s eye had created, as sort of a 3-D modeling of their position on the platform. None of them were finished, all of them practically scratched into the paper, pen grooves leaving indentations in the pages below.

Tony felt his stomach drop down to his toes. No wonder the captain was such a wreck. He was being haunted by visual and sensory stimuli that he couldn’t seem to get out of his head, and to add insult to injury, he thought this was somehow his fault. He probably felt responsible for Tony, someone he lead on the battlefield and now considered a friend after a rather wrong-footed start to their acquaintance.

He closed the sketchbook quietly and slid it back onto the coffee table, then turned to look at Cap, who still had his head in his hands, swaying slightly forward and backward in what appeared to be a self-comforting motion.

“Cap…”

No response.

Tony cleared his throat, said, “JARVIS, music off,” and in the ensuing silence, reached out a tentative hand to the other man’s shoulder as he called softly, “Steve.”

Steve suddenly stopped moving, his body going rigid. Tony had figured that might get his attention, seeing as how he couldn’t recall ever actually calling Steve by his first name, which was kind of shameful if he was honest with himself for once. He was going to make an effort to rectify that, starting now.

“Steve? Look at me. Please?”

Steve finally pulled his hands down over his face as he straightened up into a sitting position once more. He turned to his right slowly, his eyes trailing up Tony’s body on his way up to meet his eyes. They looked so sad. Tony wanted to reassure him as quickly as possible that he had nothing to feel guilty about.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

The other man’s eyes were turning glassy from not blinking, pupils dilated from stress. Tony tried again, gently squeezing and shaking Steve’s shoulder to try to snap him out of his stupor.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. We were put there against our will and had no choice in the matter until Bruce and the big guy broke us out of there.”

Steve winced and looked away, possibly at the memory of why they left the platform in that particular aerial manner, followed by the hard landing and their subsequent search for shelter behind the conveyor belts whilst still being attached – hah – at the hip.

Tony sighed and tried a different tack. “I’m fine, you know, a little sore of course, but that’s to be expected.”

Steve shot to his feet then and moved out of Tony’s reach. He turned his back on the engineer and walked to the window, muttering hotly under his breath, just loud enough for Tony to hear, “No, you’re not.”

Well, hey, at least that got him talking. “What makes you say that?”

Steve whirled around, his eyes taking on a fierce, almost angry glint. “You are _not_ fine. Not after we- I couldn’t- it was just too—" He let out a harsh breath and looked at the ceiling for a second, apparently frustrated by his inability to string more than three words together if that vein throbbing in his forehead was anything to go by. Steve pulled his gaze back down to Tony and tried again. "You spent almost a whole week locked away in your shop. That is not how someone who is fine behaves.”

“I was working. I’ve never been good at the whole ‘rest and relaxation’ thing after going through a rough time,” Tony said, making air quotes around the words everyone always used in directing him when to breathe in and when to breathe out in the aftermath of some big showdown. It’s like no one ever trusted him to be able to take care of himself after his most recent life-or-death experience.

“You haven’t been sleeping.”

“Damn, is it really still that noticeable? Or has J been running to you, too?” Tony narrowed his eyes at the camera nearest him. The AI remained conspicuously silent this time, probably sensing the tension in the air that had not been present during Tony’s conversation with Bruce.

“You’re not 20 anymore, Tony. You stop sleeping and it shows on your face, makes your whole body sag a bit more.”

“Yeah, what of it? So, I’m sleep deprived. It’s not because of anything that happened while you were…” Tony didn’t know how to finish that sentence without being blunt so he just trailed off. Ok well, it totally had been but he was trying to console Steve here, k? He stood up, frustrated that he wasn’t getting through to his friend and leader.

Soooo, maybe he _did_ need to address the elephant in the room, since tip-toeing around the subject wasn’t getting them anywhere. He rounded the couch to approach Steve, stopping at a respectable distance, making sure he held the super soldier’s gaze.

“Look, you didn’t rape me, Steve. Okay, well, maybe technically you did, but we weren’t in control of our own actions. Yes, I felt trapped and was really fucking pissed that I couldn't do anything to help us escape, but that doesn't mean there’s anything for you to feel guilty about and I don't blame you for what happened.”

Steve’s eyes widened in panic and shock at the word ‘rape', and Tony wasn't even sure that he'd heard the rest of his little impromptu speech. “Oh my god is that what you think?!”

Tony’s brow furrowed. “Um, isn’t that what you were thinking?”

“No!”

Okay, Tony was confused. “Wait. I was under the impression that you thought you’d raped me and were feeling guilty about it.”

“Where in blazes did you get that idea?!”

“The wrong place apparently," Tony gesticulated with his hands wildly, trying to keep from putting his foot any farther into his mouth, and managed to look only a little bit like a spaz in the process. "Nevermind, if you aren’t feeling bad about that, then what _are_ you freaking out about?”

At hearing Tony’s words, Steve was apparently reminded of said reason because he resumed freaking out with gusto, turning pale and blushing at the same time, if that was even possible. He ducked his head and clasped his hands behind his back, swaying again, this time side to side. The carpet under his feet seemed to have become immensely interesting all of a sudden.

Oh _shit_.

Tony’s hand flew up to cover his mouth before he said that out loud. No way. No fucking way. Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes Captain America was freaking out, not because he’d _violated_ his own teammate, but because he’d _fucked_ his own teammate.

And from the looks of it, he’d enjoyed it. Perhaps a little too much.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Tony’s mind was racing a mile a minute. Steve’s reaction had seemed so guilt-ridden that Bruce must have made the logical assumption that a stand-up guy like Steve would feel bad for almost violating his own teammate, even though he’d had no control over the situation. And Tony had accepted such an assumption at face value because it fit in so well with his wholesome image of Captain America: do-gooder extraordinaire. The flip side of that coin had never even occurred to him but now it was standing right there staring him in the face, or rather, the floor, in all its blushing glory.

Tony was mentally catapulted a week into the past by a flashback to their rescue from that ramshackle warehouse where Clint had complained about not being invited to the orgy. Tony’d gone slack-jawed at Steve’s inability to pronounce the word ‘orgy’ after what they’d just been through and had chalked it up to the double whammy of being from the 30’s and being Captain America. Apparently, he got frozen along with all of his sociocultural baggage and was still carrying it around 70+ years later.

Hence the believing that he just felt guilty for being forced upon Tony like that. But now, Tony didn’t know what to think…

“Fuck me,” he muttered softly under his breath in disbelief before he could remind himself that the man standing not ten feet from him had super soldier hearing.

Steve broke out of his swaying + trance-like state, throwing his head back with a groan of anguish, startling Tony a little, though he’d never admit it.

“I did! I know, I’m so sorry, Tony!”

“Dude, I already told you that you did nothing wrong!”

“Nothing wrong?!” Steve straightened up and lowered his head from where he’d been staring at the ceiling, hands clawing at his chin, to look directly into Tony’s eyes. “I couldn’t stop— the friction— so good— and I’d been standing there for who knows how long— once you started squeezing…I could have really hurt you!”

Tony winced a little at this admission. He’d known it was a Bad idea with a capital B to start moving, but Cap’s sweat had been driving him crazy, even more so than that sonofabitch milking machine, and so he'd just had to move, had to do _something_ other than kneel there like some twisted human sex doll.

“Yeah, that was my bad.” 

“Why _did_ you start moving, Tony?” Steve said with narrowed eyes. No levity to be found here like yesterday in the lab when Bruce had posed the same question. Steve looked like he kinda sorta didn’t wanna know, probably thinking horrible things about him right now, blaming him for pushing back.

Tony shifted his stance and ran a hand up to rub at the back of his neck in a nervous gesture. He looked down at the floor for a moment before looking back up sheepishly, “I had an itch to scratch, okay? Your sweat was tickling me and it was driving me insane and I just couldn’t take it anymore. Then we got caught in that Catch-22 and well…” Tony didn’t want to go down that road again. The nightmares had been quite enough thankyouverymuch.

To his surprise, Steve looked like he’d actually been told about that reference, so kudos to him. However, one of his eyebrows shot up at Tony’s explanation as if to say, ‘seriously?’ but “Oh,” was all that came out at first. Steve exhaled heavily, taking a couple steps backward to lean against the window sill. He started picking at his barely-there fingernails, his voice a mix of sullen anger and renewed guilt. “I’m still sorry I responded, that I almost went through with it, almost vi- viol- set that chain of events in motion. It was my responsibility to avoid that; you must have felt so helpless and uncomfortable, so…”

“You say ‘violated’ one more time and I’m gonna…” Tony warned, pointing a finger in Steve’s direction, his face dark. And people called Tony stubborn. Hmpf.

Steve looked up at Tony through his lashes, “…wronged. Cuz you’re not-”

“Not what?”

“Like…that. You’re with Ms. Potts.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Pepper.”

“Fine, yes, you’re with Pepper. I can’t even imagine how emasculated you must have—”

“Whoa whoa whoa, back up there, Speedy Gonzales, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here,” Tony interjected as he leaned his left hip against the back of the couch for support, holding his hands up in the universal time-out gesture. He made a subconscious mental note to introduce Steve to the classic Looney Tunes cartoons after all this craziness had blown over, judging from the lost look on the man’s face, which he’d have to laugh at later. Cuz right now Steve was going from bad to worse with the making sense and Tony was already 0-for-1, and he hated losing to anyone, but he especially hated losing to Captain America.

He took advantage of Steve’s confusion at the unfamiliar reference to ask, “Firstly, who said I was with Pepper?”

Steve’s brow furrowed further in confusion, “Um, everybody?” He scratched his head in that funny psychosomatic way humans had when confused. “Aren’t you?”

“It’s called a publicity stunt. Do it all the time to give the media what they think they want to keep them off my back.”

“Uh-huh. Right..." came the bemused response from the other man. "So, you and Pepper are—”

“Just friends. Best friends. Confidants. Co-conspirators. Partners in pulling the wool over the media’s eyes,” he replied easily with a grin. That part was fun at least.

“But…”

“Secondly,” Tony steam-rolled over any argument Steve was trying to make, “where do you get off telling me how _emasculated_ I must have felt? Aren’t you the one who asked me, rhetorically I might add, what I was without my suit?”

It was Steve’s turn to wince at Tony’s irritated rebuttal. “Well, um, you’re not – so that would have been – because you would never be on the – oh man,” Steve finished lamely, rubbing a hand over his face, clearly uncomfortable with where this conversation was going.

Tony wasn’t really mad at him, he was just really confused and could now see that Steve had no idea what the hell he was feeling either so he decided to try a different tack.

“What makes you think I don’t swing that way?”

Tony must have used a euphemism from Steve’s era because his eyes shot open at the implications behind those words.

Bingo.

“Come on, Steve,” Tony tried for a smirk and a more playful tone to his voice, with mild success. “Surely the phrases ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ and ‘Appearances can be deceiving’ have been around long enough that even a man of your generation would know them.”

And the blush was back. Tony was starting to get an idea of why Steve was such a nervous wreck. It might take all damn night but Tony was prepared to get to the bottom of this… issue, whatever it was, so that they could help Steve could get over his trauma and move on to other things. Like finding the bastard who did this and taking him out _hard_. He was pretty sure that the Hulk would enjoy some more smashing time. Whoever’d done this to them had hurt Captain America in the one place he seemed to be vulnerable- his pride and integrity. And well, Tony just wouldn’t let that fly. No sir.

“You mean you’ve…” Steve started to say but couldn’t finish.

“What, done that before? Well no, not exactly, and certainly not chained to a fucking platform that’s for damn sure, but what’s a little bondage between friends?” Tony chuckled, trying to make light of it.

Geez, this conversation was turning into a lesson in How to Blow Steve Rogers’ Mind in 5 Minutes or Less! When Steve’s mouth fell open and his hands fell down to his sides with a soft _thwack_ as they bounced off his thighs, Tony scoffed as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, “What? Don’t tell me you never— surely even back then—in the Army, in your down time you and the Howling Commandos never played the grown-up version of Cops and Robbers? Cowboys and Indians? Soldiers and Enemies?”

Tony was starting to wonder if maybe this was a new facet of PTSD that he hadn’t experienced before- the urge to want to make oneself understood at all costs in order to feel whole again, for someone else to believe and accept your story; emotional, psychological, social baggage be damned.

Steve’s face fell so fast Tony was worried it’d fall right off. His whole upper body heaved as he sighed out in bemusement, “We were in the middle of a war, Tony. It was all we could do to find shelter most nights, me and Buck, we couldn’t risk—” He looked down at the carpet again, adding morosely, “Besides, I thought you already— you always tease me about being a—”

“A 90-year-old virgin?” Tony chuckled. Suddenly, what Steve just said clicked into place in his brain. “Wait," he shoved his hip off the back of the couch, raising one hand up to match the word, "you weren’t actually being serious, were you?” he asked cautiously. Hot dayum, Steve was just full of surprises tonight. “You’re still a virgin? Really?”

Silence.

“I hate that word,” Steve eventually spit out in a low rumble, disdain dripping from each word. He pushed himself off the window sill. “And no, not anymore it would seem.”

Without looking up, he made his way past a bewildered Tony to disappear into his bedroom. The sound of the door closing softly behind him was louder in Tony’s head than if Steve had slammed it off its hinges.

Conversation over. Tony had struck a nerve.


	4. Thinking

-The next morning-

“I am such a douche,” Tony lamented as he plopped himself down on the couch next to where Bruce was engrossed in reading lab results, or statistics, or something. Tony didn’t really care what at the moment. He threw his head back and groaned the groan of the regretful, something he wasn’t used to feeling and did not want to make a habit of anytime in the near future.

“I am such a badass,” Clint sang out, sauntering into the living room on Tony’s heels. He perched on top of the oversized armchair they had brought in just for Thor since he was too big for the ‘puny mortal furniture’ that was strewn about the rest of the room.

Tony and Bruce looked over at him with twin glares of reproach.

“What?” Clint replied, a look of angelic innocence on his face. “I thought we were identifying key personality traits in ourselves,” he added with a devious grin, the innocent mask fizzing away in seconds.

Bruce looked truly put-upon as he went back to regarding his important papers of importance. Tony sighed in a “I’m about to spill the beans so you need to be paying attention to _me_ now, bestie,” kind of way, leaned over to rest his head on Bruce’s lab-coat-covered shoulder, and looked down at the papers in the scientist’s lap. Hey, cool, he was reading lab results! Score one for Tony. That made him feel a little better. He had been so off his game last night it was annoying. Maybe he _was_ getting too old to be up for days at a time; the lack of sleep had really thrown him off his mark and he was not happy with the results. Hmmm, maybe he could try out napping in the shop sometime soon.

“I take it your talk with Steve last night did not go as smoothly as you’d planned,” Bruce dutifully commented as he continued to peruse the pages of his report, making little notes in the margins here and there with a red pen in the seemingly universal scrawl of the Ph.D.

“Dude was a walking landmine of contradictions with triggers hidden in the most unlikely of places and I think I may have stepped on quite a few of them,” Tony felt like expressing his woes in hyperbole today. What? The imagery helped him piece together the complex, well, mindfield of emotions he was feeling about this whole situation, mmmkay?

“Thanks a lot, man,” he swatted Bruce’s knee lightly – always lightly – with the hand not trapped under his arm leaning into the other man’s side. “He wasn’t even feeling guilty about having supposedly raped me! Looked genuinely shocked when I finally had to spell it out for him cuz trying to subtly figure out why he was flippin’ his lid wasn’t getting us anywhere.”

“You thought he’d raped you? What kind of orgy were you hosting, Stark? I thought you went in for the classier stuff, you know, consensual and all that,” Barton asked incredulously, his fingers tapping a fast Latin beat against the headrest to the music obviously playing in his head.

And this was one of the myriad reasons Tony did not play well with others. Or maybe it was just obnoxious archer assassins with nothing better to do than harass and harangue him at every turn. This so did not make him want to share any more details while Barton was hangin’ around the peanut gallery.

“Don’t you have an elsewhere to be?” Tony asked pointedly, irritation writ large on his face.

“What, and miss the show? Hah, nice Buffy shout-out by the way. Cordelia was definitely hotter though. Nopes, I’m free as a—” Clint was interrupted by the chime of a text message, then another one, then another one in quick succession. He frowned down at the phone as if it had just insulted his intelligence, and then hopped lithely off of Thor’s chair.

“Urgent business?” Tony asked with saccharin sweetness.

“Uh, something like that. Later, minewalker…” Clint said distractedly and finally made himself scarce.

“Bye Bye, Birdie! Finally, ugh,” Tony complained as he returned his focus to Bruce and his papers, planning to thank Natasha later on for getting Legolas out of his hair for five minutes. Or JARVIS. Or whoever it was. He drew the line at thanking SHIELD, however.

“He doesn’t feel guilty about that?” Bruce asked as if the last minute or two hadn’t happened, all cool nonchalance as he flipped to the next page like someone who was all-too-used to dealing with interruptions from obnoxious 12-year-olds. “Then why did he look so miserable and withdrawn a few days ago when I talked to him in his room?”

Tony groaned melodramatically and basically threw his head down into Bruce’s lap, effectively pausing any further perusing of the lab report as he lay on his back, covered his face with his hands, and looked up at Bruce through his fingers.

Hyperbole is BFFs with theatrics, just ask any drag queen.

Bruce looked down at Tony through his glasses, one eyebrow poking up above the rims, and waited. Tony suddenly realized they could be here all day if he left it up to Bruce to say something because the man was a paragon of patience. Turning into an enormous green rage monster at the drop of a hat tends to do that to a guy. Tony sighed in defeat and gave a mighty good impression of a fast-talkin’ auctioneer as he took a big breath before speaking through the illusory protection of his finger cage.

“Because he may or may not have gotten off on what went down after the whole sweat-itch-tickle-thing and was feeling bad about that but not for the reason we thought and what might the reason be you ask well because I think this might have been his first time and ohmigod what a horrible way to get your cherry popped right I mean fuck that’s just gotta suck – *giant gasp for air* – balls.”

Even through his attempt to get all the air back into his lungs that he’d expelled in that one long breath, Tony had the wherewithal to notice that maybe he was becoming just a tad bit predictable as a result of hanging out with Bruce so much. Just like with Rhodey or Pepper only for different things. Because instead of responding to the content of Tony’s mile-a-minute confession, Bruce merely tilted his head up in the direction of the nearest camera and asked JARVIS, “How long this time?”

To which his AI, the besotted fool, chimed in with a cheery, “ _13.92 seconds, Dr. Banner, a new record._ ” Tony stuck his tongue out at both of them. Hey, if he was gonna be a 12-year-old drama queen about this he might as well go all out.

“ _Do you require a replay at half-speed, Doctor?_ ” JARVIS continued, ignoring Tony’s antics because whoops, it’s hard to show people you’re sticking your tongue out at them when your hands are still covering your face… No harm, no foul, then, right? Right. No one could take away his Genius Card for that kind of thing, surely.

“No thanks,” Bruce replied with a smile on his face, looking quite amused for someone who was on the bottom of a one-man dog pile. “I’ve been practicing and I’m pretty fluent in Tony-speak now so I think I’ve got the gist of it.”

“ _Welcome to the club, Dr. Banner._ ”

“Why, thank you, JARVIS!” and looking back down at Tony, he said teasingly, “JARVIS is a founding member I presume.”

Tony huffed but played along, not willing to pass up an opportunity to see Bruce relaxed and enjoying himself. “Along with Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy. And now you. You should feel honored.”

Bruce nodded his head solemnly like he was accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. “I’d raise my right hand to swear it but it’s fallen asleep under this big lumpy mess that’s been strewn across my lap.”

Oh, them’s fightin’ words! “I’ll show you who’s a big lumpy mess!”

And that’s how Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, ended up in a headlock underneath a laughing, very thankfully still peach-colored Dr. Bruce Banner, genius nuclear physicist biochemist.

Okay, Stark, time to hit the gym big-time because this was just embarrassing. And about that nap…

Later that day…

Steve finally ventured out of his room. Tony wasn’t so sure that was an improvement, however. He tried not to do a double take and freeze like a deer caught in the headlights when a skulking figure suddenly loomed in the doorway to the common room. How a figure could both loom and skulk at the same time completely eluded Tony, since both postures cast distinctly opposite shadow heights across the floor. He chalked it up to one of Cap’s super soldier talents.

Tony waited for Steve to acknowledge him.

And waited.

And waited some more.

He even went back to perusing the lab results Bruce had been looking at earlier, to let Steve break the ice on his own terms. The others came and went, Natasha dropping by with a warm – well, warm for her – and raspy, “Hey, Cap, welcome back,” and a brush along his arm. At least she got a head nod, even a little bit of a weak smile and a low, “Thanks, Romanov” in return.

Tony got squat.

He remained where he was on the couch, several Stark Tablets also scattered across the coffee table in front of him, occasionally sipping at his sadly now-cold coffee. He even got up to use the bathroom, hoping that when he came back, Steve would have selected a seat somewhere in the living room or at the kitchen bar and would acknowledge Tony’s re-entry.

No such luck.

Screw waiting. Patience wasn’t exactly Tony’s middle name anyway, everyone knew that. Steve was indeed sitting at the kitchen bar when Tony returned so he sauntered into the kitchen under the pretense of making another pot of coffee. He casually greeted Steve on his way in, and, if he hadn’t been looking right at Cap, would have missed the minuscule head nod he received and the movement of the other man’s lips in what looked and sounded like his last name, devoid of emotion. Steve’s eyes never left the pages of the TIME magazine he was boring holes into, the one they kept on the counter off to one side, just for him. He was leafing through the pages in poorly disguised irritation, his hands making quick jerky movements flipping one page to the next, the poor abused pieces of paper snapping every now and then.

When the percolator had finished the new batch, Tony asked if he wanted any coffee but all he got was the raise of a hand signaling ‘none’ and the slightest of glances up at Tony’s chest region. Cuz, you know, actual eye-contact means you and the other person share a profound bond.

Wouldn’t want to risk _that_ or anything.

Out of options for the moment without looking like he was loitering (in his own goddamn kitchen, how sad), Tony poured himself a mugful and tried for a casual, upbeat ‘okay well see ya later’ kind of leave-taking. 

Unsurprised by the answering silence, save for the sound of magazine pages being whiplashed to within an inch of their glossy little lives, he started making his way out of the room, where he _was_ surprised to see Bruce leaning against the back of Thor’s armchair near the hallway entrance, because he hadn’t heard him come in. You know, for a guy doing the whole Transformers thing every so often, hiding an actual hulking monster inside, he was remarkably light on his feet.

“Not exactly rolling out the welcome mat for you there, is he?” Bruce commented quietly, eyes comforting, tone of voice consoling.

Tony did not pout. His lower lip stayed firmly lodged in residence against his upper lip. Really.

“It’s cool, he was rather engrossed in his Most Interesting People of 2015 article. Been wanting to know who everyone’s always talking about on the news so I pointed him toward this issue a couple weeks ago but he didn’t get a chance to look at it before… before we… um, you know,” Tony finished lamely, eyes having trouble holding Bruce’s calm stare.

He looked down at the scientist’s chest for a moment in distraction but a flashback of ‘down there’ being the only thing in his field of vision suddenly assailed his brain with lightning-quick speed, causing Tony to tear his gaze back up and away into the middle distance, one hand coming up to nervously run through his hair, the other to rub at the back of his neck. For a couple seconds breathing became one of those things that you forget are automated and try to control by yourself, which works for all of three nanoseconds before you freak out that you’re going to lose count or get distracted or ohmigod what happens when you need to eat something? Or sleep! Or – 

“Oh, Tony.”

Tony’s head snapped back to look Bruce in the eye. His own eyes lost a bit of their frantic ‘shaking in their sockets’ feeling and the mini panic attack that had been winding up was abruptly kicked to the curb by the calming presence of the man standing opposite him. The friendly but patronizing tone of Bruce’s voice kicked Tony’s brain back into gear and he retorted with a little huff, “What? I was just being polite! Friendly. I even offered him some coffee.”

Bruce just shook his head in what Tony had a sickening feeling was bemusement and patted Tony on the shoulder.

“Of course you were. Come on, the bots have finished cleaning up the workshop and have resorted to polishing anything that crosses their path; I nearly got the hair on my arms shined clean off when I went down there to check on you.”

Tony turned his head to regard Bruce as they walked towards the bank of elevators and just caught the tail end of a smirk on his friend’s face as he punched the button for Tony’s shop.

The engineer let out a short bark of laughter at Bruce’s subtle sense of humor and let loose a real smile for the first time all day.


	5. Talking

-Eight nights after “the incident”-

Later that evening, Tony emerged from the depths of his shop (ok, so Bruce actually hadn’t been kidding when he said the bots were on a cleaning spree; Tony barely escaped with his grease-and-sweat-stained shirt still intact on his back) to grab a bite to eat, thinking maybe he could mooch off someone else’s home-cooking since he didn’t feel like ordering take-out.

The sudden roll of thunder that reverberated down the hallway announced Thor’s return from visiting his Lady Jane. That reminded Tony of his mental note about her research.

“JARVIS, transfer $1 million to Dr. Foster’s current research fund.”

“ _Right away, Sir._ ”

Tony nodded his thanks to the nearest camera before striding into the room.

“Friend Tony!”

Thor’s arrivals tended to lead to a gathering of whoever was in residence at the Avengers Tower. There was just something about being in the presence of a real-life Norse God that made you wanna hang around, ya know?

“Hey, Point Break.”

Most everyone was already in the common room, Tony noticed, as he plopped into an armchair in the living room.

Romanov was polishing her throwing knives at the dining room table, which meant that Tony would be eating his dinner in the living room, as far away from that particular danger as possible. He didn’t want to sit next to a bunch of really sharp daggers either.

Barton was, as per usual, hanging out above-ground perched on the balcony ledge of the helipad on the other side of the open French doors, doing his bird-watching thing whilst organizing his quiver of arrows.

Bruce smiled up at Tony from his seat on one end of the couch, reading what looked like a library book judging from the call numbers stuck to the lower end of the spine. At least someone knew how to relax without sharp objects being involved.

Thor and Steve were sitting at the kitchen bar conversing, although it looked like Thor was doing most of the talking. Steve looked attentive enough though, his body angled towards the Asgardian, his chin resting on his left hand as he leaned against the bar. It didn’t even occur to Tony to be grumpy about the fact that Steve was giving Thor the time of day; at least he was out and about today, and talking to Thor was probably therapeutic.

They probably had a lot in common, y’know, since both of them were older than dirt.

Tony craned his neck to see if they were eating anything and made a _cha-ching_ sound in his head as he spotted a big bowl of pasta sitting in front of Steve, with bread and a mixed salad of red and green leaf lettuce off to the left side.

He got up to help himself to some dinner, and was in the middle of ladling marinara sauce on top of his angel hair when a sudden remark from Barton out on the balcony made him drop the ladle back into the pot, red sauce droplets spraying out in a perfect circle about chest high.

“Winter Soldier, 10 o’clock. Headed this way, and dayum does he look pissed.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Steve’s head whip around to the right so fast that it would have given a normal person whiplash.

Tony frowned down at his shirt, then over at Steve, then out at the balcony. “Yeah, right. Good one, shepherd boy.”

A scoffing sound sliced through the sheer white curtains flapping in the late evening breeze. “You don’t cry wolf over deadly assassins headed your way, Stark, and most especially not this one.”

“Yeah, but- he’s supposed to be- why would- are you sure it’s him?” Tony finally managed to ask after tripping over his tongue several times.

“Well, let’s see,” came the sardonic reply. “Tall white guy, 6’1”, 6’2”, long black hair partially covering- well, y’know what they say- if looks could kill; sexy black ops gear, big broad shoulders, and oh yeah, there’s that shiny metal arm he’s sportin’, they’re all the rage these days, y’know, all the cool kids have one. Sound familiar?”

“Shit.” “Bucky?”

Tony and Steve said simultaneously. The look on Steve’s face was inscrutable.

Bruce turned around on the couch to drape his right arm over the back, and pushed his reading glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. He looked at Steve and asked, “Wasn’t he supposed to be on a mission?”

Steve nodded, a look of relief spreading over his face as he turned away from the balcony to address Bruce. “Deep cover. He said he wasn’t sure how long it would take for them to infiltrate and dismantle one of Hydra’s last remaining hideouts,” he looked down, shoulders slumping. “I haven’t heard from him since he left because he said it was too dangerous to communicate with home base.”

“He just got back this afternoon,” Romanov added from her spot at the dining table where she hadn’t so much as tilted her head away from her task. Obviously not news to her, then. Tony had a sneaking suspicion that nothing was ever news to her.

Scary spy was scary.

“Are you sure he’s coming here, Barton?” Tony asked without any trepidation in his voice. Nope, none at all.

“Yeah no, I’m sure he’s just out for a late-night stroll around the Park, it’s quite lovely this time of year,” Barton retorted, rather snidely if you asked Tony. “Yes, of course he’s coming here. He’s making a bee-line for the Tower, ETA two minutes. *Snerk* Do you have all your affairs in order, Stark?”

Tony looked up from cleaning the mess of marinara sauce he’d made on the stove to find that everyone was now staring at him, even Romanov, who had paused in the middle of polishing a particularly pointy blade.

“What- why are you all looking at me, I didn’t do anything!”

“Perhaps the Soldier of Winter has heard about the good captain’s recent predicament and has come post haste from his mission to see how his shield brother fares?” Thor spoke up for the first time.

“I think he’s coming for Stark,” Barton countered, hopping off the ledge and sauntering inside to lean against the wall next to the French doors. “You know what a great track record he has with making good first impressions on Howard’s cohorts.”

“Shut up, Barton,” Tony snapped back.

_“Sgt. Barnes has entered the building and boarded the residential elevator, Sir.”_ JARVIS informed him then.

Tony dropped the ladle he had just picked back up and another ring of marinara sauce joined the first one that was now smeared across his favorite Black Sabbath work shirt.

“Fuck,” he gritted out before sighing heavily. He was starting to think that food was overrated if he had to leave the safety of his workshop to scrounge for it.

That meant that Barnes was headed up to the private levels of the Avengers Towers to which only residents had access.

_‘Let Barnes stay in the Tower,’_ they said. _‘It’ll help with his readjustment to society,’_ they said. Yeah, well, fat lot of good it was going to do Tony now that Barnes had blown a fuse and gone all deadly sniper-assassin on his ass. That was just fan-fucking-tastic!

Today he’d probably heard all about the abduction from Fury, who was probably chomping at the bit to sic him on Tony for putting Cap in danger and-

OH NO.

Tony’s head shot up, pupils dilated in fear, finding Bruce’s now-concerned gaze already homed in on his location because, of course, his Science Bro had been watching him quietly fall apart inside this whole time.

SHITSHITSHIT.

Tony and Bruce had an entire conversation with their eyes in the 30 seconds it took for the elevator to rise from the ground floor to the common floor. 

A conversation whose conclusion was interrupted by the _ding_ signaling the arrival of the elevator. It sounded cold and harsh in Tony’s ears.

The doors opened and inside there stood the Winter Soldier, his body crouched slightly and tensed for the charge.

If looks could kill, indeed.


End file.
